Let the Sun Shine In

I spent yesterday, sitting by the ocean’s edge, reading, thinking, and making notes.

I thought about the questions Gary Chapman asks at the end of The 5 Love Languages chapters.

“There would be fewer divorces if only people _______________” wouldwork harder to compromise, to understand one another, and be willing to make the first move.

“Has there ever been a time when you did something because you ‘meant well’—that is, out of loving motives?” All the time. “How did it turn out?” Sometimes good, sometimes not so good.

“Look back on that point in your marriage when ‘reality’ set in and the initial romantic feelings faded. How did this affect your relationship, for better or worse?” It both tore us apart, which forced us—through choice—to find a way back to one another.

I suppose we each have storied realities that set in, those moments, as Dr. Chapman says, when the euphoric in-loveness is replaced by things like dirty toilet seats and bills and duty and death.

Our first dose of reality came less than a year after we stood at the altar, starry-eyed and full of hope and promise in front of our closest friends and family.

The death of our child breathed Failure into our ears, Shame into our veins, and Life into our lives.

I, a person Dr. Chapman describes as a Babbling Brook, begged and screamed and pleaded for answers to the questions that ultimately were housed only within me.